There Is No God Of Kindness
by TricksterWins
Summary: Desire is known for his cruelty, but giving people what they want is all he knows to do.


Dream knows of everything that happens in his realm, sometimes even before it occurs. Dreams are not stolid, predictable things, but they have their currents, their tides and their eddies. Besides, he is made of them, at least as much as they are made of him, and he is, after all, their king.

But still, Delirium's arrival might even have surprised him if he had not been expecting her. Confusion and carelessness came in her wake, and she was unthinkingly drawn to her own, or the closest that Dream's realm had to hers. She walked through a path lined by fever dreams, and the effect her presence brought to them was negligible. At least, this stealthy navigation was probably unthinking. But how could one ever really know, when it came to Delirium?

The bittersweet pang when she arrived, shuffling, and finally upturned her face was familiar. As familiar as the face of the sibling that she had replaced. But more sweet than bitter these days, to Dream. He greeted her with open arms.

"Welcome to my house, my sister. Please come inside."

This last he added almost after she had already wandered past him, through the doors of his mansion without waiting, as usual. He dismissed his curious attendants with a look, Cain with a look that was extra stern, and followed her into a room that he created on the spot. Clean, but not bare. Some furniture with soft edges, some unassuming flowers and pictures on the walls drawn from certain children's dreams. A low table with cushions for sitting, which he invited her to do.

"Venn gram," she told him seriously. "We were almost in the balloons, but wouldn't let us air. Like the lambs."

Dream smiled and pushed her hair back from her face. Most people didn't realize how pretty she was. She didn't even know, was almost certainly incapable of understanding the concept. That was why her soft hair was always so lank and tangled, her delicate fingers ended with nails bitten to the quick. And her wild bright eyes never still in one place for long enough that anyone could ever look into them, to see her sputtering fire.

Like now. Delirium darted away from his hands and pressed her face against a dream of stormclouds displayed on the wall, close to a corner. It responded to her touch and the scent of a rainy day filled the room, but no rumbles of thunder. There were red umbrellas in this dream, and a dark-skinned girl in a blue raincoat who danced and made waves in the puddles, but this dream had never held a sound. It was a deaf child's dream, and the lightning flashes were distant and soft.

"You've visited me often lately, sister," Dream prodded gently. "Your own realm should not be neglected." This might have been funny if the truth were not so tragic. Delirium's realm was only what had happened when Delight's realm crumbled. If Delirium's realm ever crumbled, it would only collapse into further Delirium, already the ruins of Delight.

Nevertheless, his sister seemed to become agitated. "My knot! My lark! Sing down and then we all went pool party, lasting in the wind and oh god but the knees and we all went fall but the worst was a promise and I was just freeze." She looked at him plaintively, expecting some sign of understanding, he supposed. He didn't know why she always seemed to think there was a chance that she'd be understood.

"I'm not saying you have to stop visiting," he said slowly. "I was only wondering why you like coming here so much, but I don't have to know why, as long as you do." He gestured to the table again. "Have a seat with me. You can help me add colors to a dream."

The last time she'd helped, a writer had received what was supposed to have been a perfectly ordinary dream about breakfast with an extra splash of green. Dream had only allowed it because he expected the dream to be quickly forgotten. This time he would be more careful.

But Delirium didn't seem as excited by his offer as she had been in the past. She was looking at him quizzically through the curtain of her hair, which always seemed to end up back in her face within minutes of anybody fixing it. She looked... was she frightened? Determined. And then she was rushing across the room as she was always doing, either darting or shuffling, never in between, and then she was standing in front of him, hunched and half-hidden by her hair, but entirely unfrightened.

"Fell bananas on the road, but then it's always falling," she said. "Why is it always falling?" And Dream wasn't entirely sure what she meant, but for once he thought he could guess because then her hands were clutching his hair in a way that was endearing but painful and her fierce lips were straining at his. And Dream was not unresponsive, though her force was enough to make him stumble back against the wall.

He thought about whether or not this was wrong. Their older siblings would never hold anything against Delirium. She was incapable of holding responsibility for anything at all. But would they blame Dream if it was Delirium's action, and would they be right?

But it was definitely Delirium's action. Her idea, acted upon by her own volition. He didn't think he'd ever seen a face that wanted something as much as hers did, though he knew that her expression was mirrored in his own, the open... He swallowed, hard.

The open... desi...

Gently he pulled his sister's grasping hands away from the back of his head and gently he slipped from between her body and the wall, and took several steps away, releasing her hands with a touch of admitted regret.

"I'm sorry," he said, and dissolved the room from around them, depositing them both back at the entrance of his mansion.

He instructed two of his attendants to make sure she returned safely to her own realm. He turned away from her disappointment and hurried back into his mansion, to the room that allowed him to communicate with each of his siblings' realms. His anger grew with every step. By the time he activated the connection he was after, he was approaching livid, and Dream was not know for his furies.

The very dreamscape shifted around him and ravens scattered from the roof as he bellowed, "_DESIRE!_"


End file.
